Taxidermy Drones: Tool of Conservation or Weapon of War?

New Mexico professor Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian has devised a way to disguise an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) – popularly known as a drone – inside a stuffed pheasant or pigeon to better study the activities of real-live birds in flight. Until now, when researchers attempted to use drones to study birds up close, they generally got scared off, scattered or in some cases, attacked. Hassanalian is hoping that birds in flight will be fooled long enough for his camouflaged drone to enter their flock and film their movements, potentially aiding current bird conservation efforts. But will it work?

Videos of Hassanalian’s early drone prototypes posted on YouTube reveal them to be surprisingly life-like in appearance and movement. They not only look like birds but actually flap their wings – rather convincingly – while flying. So far, the professor has only tested his creation briefly outside the lab in secluded fields with no birds or wildlife present. To move forward, he will need permission from federal and local authorities to fly a taxidermy drone in the wild in the presence of live birds, without causing them harm.

Drones and birds

UAV pioneers have long been fascinated with birds as an inspiration to their drone designs. Other drone engineers have designed drones with bird-like feet and claws that can perch on branches and roofs and swoop and dive like birds. They’ve even tried to train actual birds – especially eagles and falcons – tointercept and take down drones that are threatening to wreak havoc on humans or property. Another important drone role is to serve as mobile scarecrows – either on farms, to protect seeds and crops from aviary poachers, or on piers – to chase away pigeons.

Despite these promising applications, systematic study of how birds and drones interact in conservation settings is still in its infancy. Conservationists have utilized drones to study a wide range of marine and land animals, from sharks, whales, dolphins, seals and turtles to lions, elephants, orangutans and moose. A key issue is whether drones can improve observational accuracy relative to more conventional field methods. Research suggests that aerial drones, when properly deployed, do offer substantially improved results compared to those obtained by human field inspectors equipped with binoculars, telescopes or stationary zoom cameras alone.

For example, drones can improve the actual count of individual species living in specific habitats by as much as 96%, according to one important study. Such research is critical for understanding the extent to which a species may have become endangered and the resources needed to ameliorate the trend.

It is generally agreed, however, that there is potential downside to drone-based observation, even for benign conservation purposes. Improperly deployed drones might disrupt an animal’s behavior and its habitat, skewing the findings of conservation research while also damaging the animals’ health and safety.

Some researchers have addressed these issues squarely in the context of bird conservation research. For example, one early study with drones and mallards noted that differences in drone design and speed had little or no impact on the way birds reacted behaviorally but a drone’s approach angle and proximity did. Drones that flew past or alongside bird populations while filming and that remained at a distance of four meters or more did little to provoke an obvious reaction from the birds under observation, the study found. However, drones that hovered over birds vertically and drew closer than four meters might well cause them to flee.

A more recent study with various raptor species discovered that drones at a distance of even ten meters might provoke the birds under study to flee – or in some cases, even attack, especially if the drone were a fixed-wing aircraft as opposed to a smaller quadcopter. Many birds would return to their nesting spots if the provocation were limited – but after five minutes, might not, the study found. Another factor was the type of species; more territorial raptors were more likely to become defensive and aggressive, researchers noted.

A third even more recent study – this one with vultures — a highly vulnerable bird species that also plays a critical role in the maintenance of eco-systems – arrived at similar findings.  Some but not all vulture species were more likely to respond negatively to drone intrusions, especially during nesting seasons. In addition, drones that flew directly overhead nesting vultures were more likely to provoke a negative response, regardless of the vulture species, the study found.

All of these research studies note that potential threats to bird life go far beyond the possibility of collisions resulting in bird death or injury. In fact, disruptions of bird life and their consequences might not be easily detectable, but could still prove harmful. Most notably, an increase in bird stress due to drone intrusions could undermine successful mating and breeding, leaving the young, especially, vulnerable to abandonment and death, researchers found. Death could come due to starvation or to nest falls or because of increased exposure to predators, researchers found.

Even the loud whirring of clacking noise from drone propellers could prove stressful, reducing mating time and bonding between mothers and their young, some researchers have noted.

Concerns about wildlife safety, especially bird safety, due to drone intrusions, are not just hypothetical. As drone flying has proliferated in recent years, unintended drones and bird encounters – many unrelated to conservation research – have also grown. One of the most dramatic and consequential incidents occurred three years ago when the flight of a single drone into the Bolsa Chica bird sanctuary in southern California disrupted the entire breeding season of endangered Elegant Terns. The terns mistook the errant drone for a bird predator and promptly fled their breeding grounds leading to the deaths of thousands of small chicks, undermining the goals and mission of the sanctuary.

In response to this incident, the sanctuary has posted new signage warning visitors not to fly drones on or near its property, with new stiffer penalties for those caught doing so.  In addition the state, under pressure from conservationists, has launched a formal inquiry that may result in new and stricter guidelines for drone flying at or near the dozens of bird sanctuaries located up and down the entire California coast.

Current regulatory void

How to regulate drone flying is an important issue in the drone industry and a top priority for the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, the agency charged with regulating all commercial and private aircraft operations. However, most FAA regulations pertain to protecting other aircraft, physical infrastructure or humans from the risk of collision and injury due to drone intrusions – not to protecting animals per se.

That said, the FAA as well as the National Park Service (NPS) are not oblivious to the potential risk to wildlife. For example, NPS regulations do prohibit drones from launching and landing drones in federal parks, forests and wildlife refuges. In addition, in those federal parks where drones, with an approved permit, are allowed to fly and film, if they so choose, their operators are instructed to maintain a “safe” distance from wildlife. However, to date more precise rules, including proscribed “safe” distances, have not been stipulated by the FAA or by any other federal, state or local agency.

Past and ongoing experience of bird interactions with drones and the current regulatory void pertaining to drone flying amid bird populations raise unavoidable questions about the purpose, viability and safety of the taxidermy drone project as well as its ethical implications.  The project’s main mission, according to its director, is to film and collect sensor data on birds while in flight to gain new insights into their flight patterns and to learn more about how birds conserve energy to fly long distances without resting.

However, while billed as a contribution to “wildlife monitoring,” and bird conservation, it is not entirely clear how his team’s research will actually contribute to this purpose. Conservation research typically involves observation of nests and breeding patterns; however, no such purpose appears to be in mind in the case of this project – far from it.

In fact, Hassanalian, when citing the research’s implications in interviews, also highlights its prospective value to the “aviation industry.” One of his assistants notes on camera that the color of an aircraft as well as its aerodynamic design are key factors in its flight efficiency; these factors likely play a similar role in bird flight efficiency, he suggests. Hassanalian also hypothesizes that the precise formation of large bird flocks, like airplanes flying in unison, could greatly affect their flight efficiency, including their use of fuel, as well as their maneuverability.

Pentagon spy birds?

Another potential implication of Hassanalian’s research is that taxidermy drones might be used for clandestine military operations, including spying. In enemy territory, the drones, equipped with cameras and other devices (including perhaps, explosives), would not appear as drones but merely as birds and might easily evade detection. Studying birds up close to better mimic their movements in flight could therefore prove useful for warfare purposes, not conservation. Hassanalian not only admits this possibility but seems to welcome it, perhaps as another source of future interest in and funding for his research.

Hassanalian wouldn’t be the first university researcher to collaborate with the Pentagon on military drone research disguised as a civilian endeavor.  Normally, though, these projects are kept separate – or designated “dual use” – with the commercial application in the lead, while the military services pursue their own version of the same technology, informally sharing research results along the way. Both the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the Air Force Research laboratory (AFRL)are exploring “biomimetic” drone projects in which drones are configured  as birds – or in more recent cases, as insects as small as a few centimeters long. To the naked eye, the insect drones, with catchy names like “Robo-Fly” and “Robo-Bee,” look and fly like the real thing and come equipped with super-miniaturized cameras that can capture HD images of enemy troop concentrations and installations. The new insect drones are not only nearly impossible to see – let alone detect, but they also fly inaudibly – unlike most drones, which are fairly noisy.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is heavily invested in similar drone projects, which normally feature collaboration with civilian technology firms that specialize in AI and robotics – companies like Arion, with offices worldwide. DARPA began investing in these micro- and nano-drone projects over a decade ago and their prototypes are just now beginning to come online. In fact, the US Army’s “Black Hornet,” one of the first to be deployed, already conducts reconnaissance  missions in Ukraine. It weighs just a few ounces and flies at a speed of 13 miles per hour and at a maximum altitude of 1.5 kilometers, and can stay airborne for 22 minutes without the need for recharging. Ukraine received some 1,000 Black Hornets back in December 2023, according to published reports,

The US and its allies are not alone. After years of research, China is also beginning to deploy its own “spy birds.” However, rather than a pigeon or pheasant, the Chinese prototype is modeled on a small Eurasian tree sparrow, which is smaller and even harder to detect. Last December, at a commemoration of the birth of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Chinese military officials unveiled its new “ornithopter” to the amazement of the assembled dignitaries. A PLA soldier released the experimental drone by hand and it proceeded to circle the skies, then dive and swoop, showcasing its bird-like aerodynamics. Beijing plans to introduce the drone – dubbed the “Little Falcon” – into actual reconnaissance missions some time next year, though, for reasons of national security, it won’t disclose where.

In the annals of military warfare, exploiting live birds for surveillance isn’t exactly new. Carrier pigeonshave been used for decades for battlefield communications, and in World War II some were strapped with cameras to try to capture still images of enemy forces and installations. But today’s bird-like drones are far more agile and can be flown and directed remotely; they can also be equipped with more sophisticated AI-powered avionics and surveillance equipment to relay real-time tactical information. In theory, they could also be equipped with explosive devices, much as some of the larger undisguised drones are, for suicide attacks. Communication is one purpose; battlefield surveillance is another, and using birds or disguised birds as bomb platforms or missiles is quite another. The more their role is escalated into deactivate combat, the higher the potential stakes, ethically, for their unrestricted use, especially when harm to innocents becomes a risk, as it invariably does in today’s civilian-intensive wars.

Ethical concerns

Looking at the taxidermy project, one must ask:  Is it ethical to conduct this kind of thinly-veiled military-purpose research in the guise of “conservation” research? In combat, the use of military weapons camouflaged as civilian ones – even when targeting enemy soldiers – is considered by some legal experts to be a violation of the “rules of war.”  In practice, warring parties, citing battlefield expediency, do frequently violate these same rules – but ad hoc violations are not the same as planned systemic ones. It stands to reason, then, that designing civilian consumer aircraft with military purposes already in mind might also raise ethical issues, especially for a civilian research university. This is one set of questions that surely demands an answer, or at least greater clarity, before the taxidermy project is pursued to completion.

Hassnaalian’s conservation claims also seem dubious on their face. The professor acknowledges that bird observation research with noisy mechanical drones often causes them stress and often fails to fulfill its research purposes. How, then, will taxidermy drones that deliberately intrude upon bird airspace avoid this same outcome? Hassanalian, if he has an answer, has yet to offer one. Current FAA guidelines call for a safe distance to be maintained between drones and birds. In this case, just the opposite is intended on the assumption that birds will welcome a bird-like drone presence. What happens if they do not?  One observersuggests that birds might initially steer clear of a taxidermy drone but could over time, accommodate themselves to it. Perhaps, but how much bird resistance – and outright injury – during months of field testing would be deemed a sign that the drone practice was indeed harmful – and therefore, counter-productive?

Currently, Hassanalian’s project remains in an early “proof of concept” experimental phase. Most of the testing is confined to a caged laboratory environment; some early bird prototypes have been launched in a small confined field outdoors. So far, since no human or wildlife, including live birds, are yet involved, the project has met Socorro University’s ethical review standards. Will additional ethical review and regulatory bodies be called in to review the project as it continues to develop? There are a large number of stakeholders in industry, government and the conservation community that could and should weigh in on the matter.

It could be that Hassanalian’s project will prove to have substantial merit. No doubt taxidermy drones, like insect drones, could also be applied to constructive commercial endeavors, like farm management or infrastructure inspections, but there are plenty of undisguised mechanical drones already being used to conduct those operations – and quite efficiently. Why, then, develop smaller “biomimetic” drones? Because they offer the additional advantage of clandestinity, which makes them ideally suited for battlefield reconnaissance use. In theory, they might also be deployed for civilian spy operations, by corporations and by law enforcement, a role that has already caused enormous public controversy, resulting, in the latter case, in heavy (but incomplete) restrictions on drone police use outside of criminal pursuit, SWAT and search-and rescue missions. But the next-generation insect and bird drones would be far less detectable, and it’s not clear, without greater oversight, whether their use would be similarly constrained. Military spying is one thing, spying on citizens, of course, is quite another. This is a serious concern.

Unquestionably, as Hassanalian’s project continues to advance, he should be asked to expand the orbit of public and scientific oversight to respond to basic safety, feasibility and “dual use” concerns and to ensure its conformity with current FAA regulatory guidelines as well as ethical standards for wildlife conservation research. It could be that these standards need further refinement or clarification to accommodate ongoing advances in drone technology and the expanding scope of drone applications. Assuming a baseline scientific and ethic review is deemed favorable, the taxidermy drone project might be given further go-ahead for real-world testing and then evaluated again periodically to determine if full-scale commercialization is truly warranted.

In the end, the taxidermy drone project may well surmount these regulatory hurdles. Objections may be answered and the project modified accordingly.  For example, new conservation goals might be added to fill out the range of contemplated applications. Not all risks can be anticipated at the outset of new scientific research, and the presence of risk should not necessarily be an impediment to scientific progress.

Nevertheless, with so many unknowns still apparent, a clearer cost-benefit analysis and balance sheet might be constructed at the outset, and then adjusted and refined as the project advances. Simply put, who, if anyone, stands to benefit from the development of taxidermy drones? What are the potential risks of pursuing the research further to successful commercialization? Is the pursuit of the benefits worth the prospective costs? And who, in the end, decides these issues? At some point, these important questions need to be addressed.